EXCLUSIVE: Gold Circle Films is out to cast on The Brotherhood of the Rose, an adaptation of the David Morrell novel that will be the next film directed by Ross Katz. Katz will shoot it early next year. After getting Oscar nominations for producing In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation, Katz made his directing debut on the 2009 HBO film Taking Chance. The film starred Kevin Bacon as a soldier escorting home to Wyoming the body of a 19- year old marine soldier who was killed in action. Katz, who wrote the script, won DGA and WGA Awards, and Bacon won a Golden Globe for his performance.

Katz and his producing partner Fred Berger adapted The Brotherhood of the Rose from the 1984 novel by Morrell, who also wrote First Blood, the novel that hatched the Rambo series with Sly Stallone. The Brotherhood of the Rose was turned into a 1989 NBC miniseries that starred Robert Mitchum and Peter Strauss. The feature started development at Warner Bros but it languished until Gold Circle picked up the lapsed rights. It is an espionage tale revolving two orphans who were raised by a CIA operative to be assassins, and find themselves targeted for death. Gold Circle’s Paul Brooks will produce, Scott Niemeyer and Norm Waitt will be exec producers and Guy Danella is co-producer. Gold Circle just wrapped The Haunting in Georgia for Lionsgate and is prepping the comedy Pitch Perfect for Universal. Katz and Morrell are repped by CAA.